Mussolini in the context of "Greco-Italian War"

The Italian campaign of World War II, also called the Liberation of Italy following the German occupation in September 1943, consisted of Allied and Axis operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to 1945. The joint Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) was operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre and it planned and led the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, followed in September by the invasion of the Italian mainland and the campaign in Italy until the surrender of the Axis forces in Italy in May 1945.

The invasion of Sicily in July 1943 led to the collapse of the Fascist Italian regime and the fall of Mussolini, who was deposed and arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III on 25 July. The new government signed an armistice with the Allies on 8 September 1943. However, German forces soon invaded northern and central Italy, committing several atrocities against Italian civilians and army units who opposed the German occupation and started the Italian resistance movement. Mussolini, who was rescued by German paratroopers, established a collaborationist puppet state, the Italian Social Republic (RSI), to administer the German-occupied territory. On 13 October 1943, the Allies recognized Italy as a co-belligerent in the war against Germany. Thereafter, the Italian Co-Belligerent Army and the Italian partisans fought alongside the Allies against German troops and the collaborationist National Republican Army; an aspect of this period is the Italian civil war. In the summer of 1944, after the Axis defeats at Cassino and Anzio, central Italy, including Rome, was liberated. Northern Italy was liberated following the final spring offensive and the general insurrection of Italian partisans on 25 April 1945. Mussolini was captured by the Italian resistance and summarily executed by firing squad. The campaign ended when Army Group C surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on 2 May 1945, one week before the formal German Instrument of Surrender. Both sides committed war crimes during the conflict, and the independent states of San Marino and Vatican City surrounded by Italian territory also suffered damage.

"Ur-Fascism" or "Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt" (Italian: Il fascismo eterno, or Ur-Fascismo) is an essay authored by the Italian philosopher, novelist, and semiotician Umberto Eco. First published in 1995, this influential essay provides an analysis of fascism, a definition of fascism, and discusses the fundamental characteristics and traits of fascism. Drawing on Eco's personal experiences growing up under Mussolini's Italian fascism and his extensive research on fascist movements, the essay offers his insights into the nature of fascism and its manifestations.

In May 1940, during the Second World War, the British war cabinet was split over whether to discuss peace terms with Germany or to continue fighting. Opinion on the side of continuing with the war was led by the prime minister, Winston Churchill, while the side preferring negotiation was led by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. The disagreement escalated to crisis point and threatened to bring down the Churchill government.

With the British Expeditionary Force in retreat to Dunkirk and the Fall of France seemingly imminent, Halifax believed that the government should explore the possibility of a negotiated peace settlement. His hope was that Hitler's ally, the still-neutral Italian dictator Mussolini, would broker an agreement. When a memorandum proposing this approach was discussed at the War Cabinet on 27 May, Churchill opposed it and urged his colleagues to fight on without negotiations. He was supported in the war cabinet by its two Labour Party members, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, and also by the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, who as leader of the Liberal Party was co-opted to the war cabinet for its meetings about the proposed negotiations. Churchill's biggest problem was that he was not the leader of the Conservative Party and he needed to win the support of ex-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, without which he could have been forced to resign by the large Conservative majority in the House of Commons.

Olga Louise Milles (née Granner; 24 January 1874–3 January 1967) was an Austrian-born portrait painter who spent many years at Millesgården in Sweden after marrying the sculptor Carl Milles. Although while young she was very productive, she painted less when married. After her husband was appointed professor at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in suburban Detroit, the couple spent 20 years in the United States. There she painted a number of portraits while looking after the home. Olga Milles and her husband avoided the war years in Europe, but both sympathized with Hitler and Mussolini. Two years after her husband died in 1955, she returned to Austria where she spent the rest of her life in her hometown Graz.

Errico Malatesta (4 December 1853 – 22 July 1932) was an Italian anarchist propagandist, theorist and revolutionary socialist. He edited several radical newspapers and spent much of his life exiled and imprisoned, having been jailed and expelled from Italy, Britain, France, and Switzerland. Originally a supporter of insurrectionary propaganda by deed, Malatesta later advocated for syndicalism. His exiles included five years in Europe and 12 years in Argentina. Malatesta participated in actions including an 1895 Spanish revolt and a Belgian general strike. He toured the United States, giving lectures and founding the influential anarchist journal La Questione Sociale. After World War I, he returned to Italy where his Umanità Nova had some popularity before its closure under the rise of Mussolini.